1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of portable urinals and, more particularly, to the field of portable urinals adapted for use in sick rooms, hospitals, campers, travel trailers and/or for use by handicapped or partially immobilized individuals.
2. Background Discussion
As long as an individual remains alive, there exists the necessity that the individual periodically relieve himself or herself by urinating. For most individuals this bodily function, while often a nuisance, is of no special consequence.
This is not, however, the situation for individuals confined to bed or a wheelchair and for those who are either not ambulatory or, for some reason or another, have great difficulty moving about. For such individuals, the task of relieving himself or herself is usually a trying and complicated process, often requiring the assistance of others and not infrequently engendering in the individual a sense of helplessness, inferiority and dependency.
Some efforts have been made to alleviate this problem. U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,922 to Terauchi, for example, discloses a urine collector for a wheel chair and U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,795 to Johnson discloses a portable urinal, as does U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,599 to Nilsson. While such urinals as are disclosed in these patents are considered to be useful, they do not completely solve the problem of many individuals. As an illustration, the portable urinals disclosed in the above-referenced Johnson and Nilsson patents are considered to have a limited fluid capacity and may be difficult for some individuals to use in an easy and sanitary manner.
An associated problem is that some individuals having to use a portable urinal, such as those disclosed in the patents mentioned above, are required, because of the nature of their infirmity or other health problem, to frequently collect urine specimens for analysis. To the knowledge of the present inventor, there are no portable urinals that enable the collecting of urine specimens in a clean, sanitary and easy manner.
For these and other reasons, the present inventor has invented an improved portable urinal that not only is easy and convenient to use in a wide variety of applications but also enables the easy and sanitary collecting of urine sample.